


you will never know how far

by m_feys



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Canon LGBTQ Character, Character Study, Emotions, Gen, In later chapters - Freeform, Kinda, POV Nile Freeman, Swordfighting, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Training Montage, also booker is talked abt a lot but hes not actually there, discussions of homophobia and racism, idk how to tag this ok, so i didnt tag him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27385345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_feys/pseuds/m_feys
Summary: They were all intimidating at first. Not that Nile wasn't used to being sized up, but now, these were her people. For however long she had.Training with Nicky was simple enough, but Joe was a different story altogether. Andy seemed content to sit back and let her struggle. She preferred to make her own mistakes anyway.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Comments: 33
Kudos: 254





	1. Building muscle memory

**Author's Note:**

> we need more in the nicky & nile and joe & nile tags more always >:V
> 
> dijfhkdh ok this is just something i wrote in like big chunks when the feeling hit me, its mostly nile getting to know joe and nicky and also some of them exploring what losing booker did to them. its a few chapters but idk how long it will actually be, and im just gonna do quick editing so feel free to lmk if theres mistakes
> 
> i dont have a schedual for posting so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> edit: forgot to mention the title is from 'gimme a minute' by pvris, cause it reminds me of the team

She tested the weight of it in her hand before looking back up at Nicky curiously, he was holding his own sword by the handle and watching her impassively. That had been intimidating at first, well sometimes it still was, like right now. The way he just watched, eyes intense and face relaxed, like he was studying you and wasn’t the least bit interested all at once.

“What’s this?” She asked. For a few weeks now, she and Nicky had worked on her hand to hand combat. Andy had wanted to train her at first, but after Nile threw her down one time and she was limping for a week both Nicky and Nile had decided a change was in order, and he’d been working with her ever since. He was a good teacher, patient. A bit less brutal than Andy though, and Nile wasn’t sure if she appreciated that entirely when it came to this kind of training.

“It is good to have a variety of skills, and be trained with different kind of weapons,” he spoke. She tilted her head, glancing down at the sword in her hand, quickly running her finger along it to find that, yes, it was quite sharp and maybe Nicky was a little more brutal than she thought.

“Uh, I mean, you don’t really bring a sword to a gunfight,” she pointed out, then paused, “unless you’re Andy,” she quickly tacked on.

And Nicky outright laughed at that, which was its own kind of surprising. She’d gotten him to smirk before, and he sometimes gave her a smile that read very much as ‘placating’ even if she was sure he didn’t intend it that way, but she’d only ever seen Joe make him really _laugh_.

“There are a lot of things you wouldn’t do— unless you’re Andy,” he said, still smiling warmly, “but in this case, I have, on occasion, brought a sword to a gunfight.”

She looked him over, they’d been laying low for the past few months, Nile thought it was perfectly understandable after all the bullshit that had happened, but Joe seemed antsy to get back into doing jobs. Nile could only assume he was restless and wanting for something to occupy his hands, she could understand that. But even besides all the bullshit, Nile needed training with the team if they were going to head back into danger. There was no way she was letting Andy get hurt because she wasn’t accustomed to their formation. And besides, there was a bit of a gap in that formation now, one that was supposed to stay missing for a hundred years. Nile didn’t really get the banishment thing, it didn’t seem like it was gonna fix anything, and you could see the aching grief in all of their eyes whenever that missing piece was pointed out, even Joe, who had been the most insistent about Booker staying away.

The point was they hadn’t done anything since then, so she hadn’t actually seen Nicky or Joe fighting in the field when they actually went in prepared and weren’t just scavenging guns off of dead soldiers. Not that she hadn't noticed the pair of swords in their scabbards stashed with Joe and Nicky’s stuff, just like Andy's axe, but there was still too much she didn't know about how they operated.

“Oh,” was all she could come up with in return.

He went on, unphased by her lackluster response, “and even if you prefer guns, if you're in a situation where you don’t have them, you can adapt easier with more skills in your...” he paused, eyes roaming as he looked for the word.

“Repertoire?” she suggested.

He lifted his brows at that. “French, yes! English always borrows so many words I forget which are part of it and which you would not know.”

She smiled a little at that, it was nice knowing they considered her that much, they all spoke in English around her. She did know a little Spanish as well and she hoped to learn more languages soon, particularly Italian, considering how often Joe and Nicky used it.

He raised his sword then, and bent his knees, falling readily into a fighting stance; she mirrored him, paying close attention to the way his body was angled as he held the sword and copying it herself.

He looked pleased as he watched her. “As always you are a quick learner, Nile. Right now, we’re using rapiers, a lighter weapon, to get you used to a sword in your hand and build up strength for heavier weapons.” Suddenly his face settled back into that measured neutrality and she felt the atmosphere change. “I am going to attack you, and I want you to deflect me, to see what your instincts are like.”

She swallowed, looking at the sword ready in his hand, then to her own, before meeting his eye and nodding. Then he was on her, with no further warning. He goes low first and gets her in the thigh, she’s just not ready to stop it. But he doesn’t stop after she cries out in pain from that first attack and she’s forced to get her wits about her to shift her sword enough that his next swipe glanced off her blade, with the shrill sound of metal on metal. Her grip was clumsy though, so his next slash sent the sword slipping out of her sweaty hand.

“Shit,” she cursed as he stilled and looked at the sword on the ground. He was hard to read, as always, but she would guess he was unimpressed.

She glanced down at the freshly healed skin of her thigh, blood still wet on her leggings, her training clothes hadn’t gotten destroyed since the last time Andy practiced knife combat with her. Right now her chest was heaving, and she didn’t usually get out of breath so quickly, even after a long round of hand-to-hand. She realized she was nervous. She glanced back at Nicky, who now had that measuring look focused on her, and she cringed internally, waiting for his judgment.

“Do not get discouraged for struggling with something you haven’t been trained in,” he said then, surprising her still, she could never get a read on him, but she nodded, chastised. “Pick up your sword,” he said, “I will show you how to do it properly now that I know your skill level.”

“You mean level zero?” she asked sarcastically, under her breath.

His lips quirked then, clearly having heard her, “you have keen instincts, Nile, you moved to block me correctly, that is something not easy to learn if you don’t have it.”

She picked up her sword then and stood like before, her copy of his stance. He looked her over, assessing. Reaching out to grab her arm then, and change the angle of her wrist.

“Hold it like this,” he said, “as an extension of your arm, bring your elbow closer to your center.” He looked to her feet then, “stance wider,” he spoke, nudging her foot with his boot, and she shifted, accommodating. “Relying on your shoulder and putting your body behind the weight of the sword will help you to keep your hold. Now,” he said, stepping back, again, holding his own weapon at the ready, “attack me, and watch how I deflect.”

They went on like that for a long while, until Nile’s arm was getting heavy and she decided laying flat out on the mat would be easier than rising after getting slashed on the side again.

Nicky hummed, and stared down at her lying on the ground, half smiling as he did.

“You remind me of Booker,” he said then, unprompted, and that was enough to shock her into sitting up and staring at him in surprise. None of them mentioned Booker much, not of their own volition. Save for Andy when she and Nile were alone, sometimes they would talk about the past, but she’d never heard his name from Nicky or Joe after they left him on the coast of the British isles. 

“How so?” she asked immediately, not willing to give up this chance to understand what exactly was going through these immortals' heads.

“He was the same, he always preferred modern weaponry. Hated training with bow and arrow,” he smiled lightly, “though, he was already trained in swords, but he never used them unless he had to.”

“Did you train him too?” She pursued the topic. She was always asking questions, she wondered if they got tired of it, but there was still so much she needed to learn about them.

“Not much, no,” he said, offering her a hand then, “mostly Andy… and Joe,” he said thoughtfully, “come, let’s rest for a while,” he said, still holding out a hand expectantly.

She grasped it and he helped pull her up easily, before turning to grab their swords and set them aside.

“Joe trained him?” she asked. Sometimes Andy came to watch them spar and give advice here-and-there after she had been banned from physically training Nile for the time being. But Joe had never come anywhere near it. She had assumed he didn't have the patience for her, but now she was wondering if it was something else.

He turned to look at her then, relaxed and calm as always but there was something mournful in his voice. “Joe trained him in many things, they learned modern ways together too, that Andy didn’t already know. Booker, he did like throwing knives, that was one thing he enjoyed of past styles. You should ask Joe to teach you that, I am not the best at those,” he said simply.

“Has…” she started, hesitating for a moment it was something she’d been wanting to ask but not knowing how. Whatever, be direct, that has always worked for her. “Has Joe been avoiding me?”

Nicky only looked at her then, considering her before turning away without an answer, which was an answer enough in itself.

“Cause I don’t know why he would want to teach me if he doesn’t even wanna be near me,” she said then, annoyed that Nicky had suggested it if he wasn’t going to actually admit that Joe simply didn’t want to be around her. “If that’s the sort of thing you’re asking, for me to go confront _h_ _im_ , I’d rather you just said it.”

“I was not lying,” he said, turning back to her then, with that ever calm expression, the especially unnerving one, “Joe is much better at dexterous moves like the knives. But you’re right, he doesn’t want to be near you, he’s afraid of you."

She wanted to laugh at that, “he’s _afraid_ of me?” she repeated, disbelieving. When she first met them, Joe seemed the most personable of the group, but she quickly learned he was polite to strangers and stayed brusque with her. Or at least that was all she had seen of him after Merrick. Never once had he seemed afraid. He seemed hardened, and maybe tired, and angry, but not afraid.

“Afraid you will betray him,” Nicky clarified. Which made a little more sense.

“I’m barely part of the group, how could I betray you?” she reasoned, “I don’t know where any of your safehouses are, I’m always around if you wanna watch me, and besides, I already saved all of you once, doesn’t that count for a little faith?” She asked, more hurt by this news than she had expected to be.

Nicky breathed out slow, just looked at her, a little sadly, “That’s exactly why he’s afraid, if he trusts you, if he gets close to you, what happens then?” then he sighed, voice softer as he said, “he just doesn’t want to get his heart broken again.”

That sentence punches the breath out of her chest. She’s not sure if Nicky is trying to defend Joe’s reasoning, or if he just wants to explain. She still finds both of them a bit inscrutable, but those words put everything into perspective for her. Her first impression of Joe wasn’t way off, he just hadn’t been betrayed at that point, and he kept her at arms distance now, or further away than that, even. 

“I would _never_ do what Booker did,” she said suddenly, vehemently realizing what a blow to the heart of this weird little family that had been.

“I know that,” Nicky assured her then, “Andy knows,” he added, then looks thoughtful, eyes drifting away from her then, “it is not a good solution,” he said, and she guessed he was referring to Joe again, “in the long term it will help nothing, but fear does strange things to people…” he said slowly, “I suspect you already understand that.” He said, looking back to her and his gaze burning into her soul once more.

“Yeah,” she said softly, “yeah, I get that.”

“If you want me to be direct, I will tell you that I have talked about this with Joe, but he can be very stubborn,” he said, smiling fondly as he told her. They were a matched set, that much was easy to tell, Joe-and-Nicky, always and forever, but they weren’t very open at all. Even with all this time off, they stayed close to the safe house, they always sat across the table, on different sides of the living area, and the only time she ever really saw them close was at night when they curled up with Joe pressed to his back and Nicky lying under his arm. It was strange to never see them show physical affection, and, _sad_ in a way. She got the feeling they had learned over the years it was safer not to, not in the light of day, not in the presence of anyone outside their group, and even then, they stayed separate.

“If you come to him, he may refuse to teach you, but I doubt he would, he’s quite fond of you, however he may act.” Her brows knitted, not sure if she could make herself believe that.

Nicky stepped past her then, gesturing for her to follow as he passed. “Come, you’ve trained well, I will make you something to eat.” She glanced one last time to the weaponry and the swords lying set aside for now, before turning to follow him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a note, i really enjoy nicky being known as like "the nice one" to andy, booker, and joe, but from the outside hes just like :| this a lot and smiles out of politeness, so hes still as intimidating as the rest of them most of the time dsjkhfkhds
> 
> nile is a second nice one <3


	2. Taking aim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaaaa thank you for all the sweet comments!! sorry idk how to respond to all of them but i v much appreciate them <33

That night Joe joined them for dinner, as usual, She watched him as they ate. She probably wasn’t as subtle as she hoped because he caught her eye a few times and looked perturbed. 

They still slept in one room. Nile suspected it was about more than just the safety of sleeping in numbers; that part of it was the comfort of being close and being able to hear others’ breathing. She wasn’t about to suggest they change the arrangement when she found it soothing herself, sleeping in close quarters was something familiar. When Nicky and Joe were in their bed, curled towards each other, while she laid on her own cot, she could hear them muttering in Italian to each other in the dark, and it didn’t sound lovey-dovey.

Despite the tension, the next day, which would have been her rest day, she spoke to him. Usually, she would have taken the chance to relax after training hard the previous day, but she wasn’t going to let her chance to know these people— who she was apparently stuck with for the foreseeable future— better.

She finds him outside hunched over in a chair with his sketchbook in hand, tracing the skyline. He glances up as he hears her approach, but turns back to his drawing without any further acknowledgment. She stands next to him for a moment, with only the sound of the wind and the scratch of pencil on paper between them. She studies the shapes of the trees for a moment, glancing at the drawing as she does. It’s good, realistic. But she doesn’t miss the harried, nearly tense way his hand is moving.

“Uh, Nick said you could teach me how to throw knives,” she speaks, breaking the silence.

He stops drawing then, glancing at her once more. “He doesn’t want to teach you?” he asked flatly, and she suspected he knew exactly what Nicky was doing and had already told him not to do it. Nicky had claimed Joe was the stubborn one, too.

She shrugged, “he said you were better at it.”

He took in a deep breath in, and out through his nose before he stood suddenly and she took a step out of his way as he strode purposefully back towards the house. She was about to resign herself to Nicky having been wrong about Joe having some secret fondness for her, but then he was glancing back, “well, come on, wasting daylight.” and gave her a bland smile. She tried to smile back, not entirely sure she had succeeded.

He dug out a set of knives for her from some spare closet in the safehouse, apparently, every safe house they had was bristling with weapons of all kinds. Then they were tossing knives at trees, with the note that he would show her how to sharpen them later too.

It was mostly quiet between them, like before, but every now and again, he would surprise her with a soft-spoken question about her life.

“What was your first fight?” 

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, before focusing back and sending the knife spinning toward the trunk of the tree, landing dead center.

“Well, when I died, I guess. That was the first person I’ve killed.”

But Joe shook his head as he moved to retrieve the knife. “I mean, what was the first time you had to struggle against something?”

She stopped then, to consider, “um, when I was 13, I think.” She spoke, and he turned around to meet her eye as she spoke. His eyes were soft and dark, unlike Nicky’s who seemed to pierce right through her. His eyes had a gentle quality that was hard to describe like there was an endless sadness, and an interminate joy, all wrapped up in one behind them. 

“These girls didn’t like me. Thought I was too dark, you know?” she started, and he nodded simply in understanding, “They started grabbing my hair and I fought back.”

"A good reason to fight," he commented softly, subdued, then stepped out of the way of her next throw, but she kept her focus on him, “you?” she asked in return.

He screwed his face up then, in contemplation and she found herself smiling a bit at his scrunched expression. “I was a young boy,” he recalled slowly, accent shifting slightly like he was back in a different time and place altogether. “I went to the market to get my mother something, I can’t remember, and three boys tried to steal it from me, but I fought back.”

“You won?” she asked curiously.

He smirked then, and she found she was happy to see it, “no,” he said simply, “I limped home with nothing. My mother scolded me for fighting and praised me for being brave.”

She smiled back then.

“Did you win?” he asked in return, brows lifting.

She hesitated, “uh, yeah I guess, as much as you can win for fighting off bullies and getting suspended for it.”

He nodded then, “these things are never simple.”

“No,” she agreed, “they’re not.”


	3. Rough terrain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY GOOD MORNING, if ur on tumblr u probably know what im on about, if you're not, congratulations. 
> 
> but im really living in it rn, funniest thing to happen in weeks, anyway yea. im feeling good this morning so new chapter rn hehehehehehahah
> 
> the tone of this chap is VERY different from my mood rn dkjfhkjhf, im just going thru it, but yea, pls enjoy !

Andy was there to spectate for her next time training with swords. She was sitting backward on a chair, her arms resting on its back, and smirking in amusement every time Nicky got a blow in.

“Could you quit that?” Nile demanded once she’d gotten tired of it.

“I’ve been silent this entire time,” she denied serenely.

“You’re over there snickering to yourself,” she accused.

“Maybe if you weren’t so distracted by something so small you would do better,” Andy suggested, lifting a challenging eyebrow.

Nicky glanced between them, “Nile, you are going to encounter all sorts of distraction. Focus on what you are doing, not what Andy thinks, and not what I think, but on _you_.”

She turned her frown on him then and settled into her stance, which was familiar now at least, even if the way she needed to move her arms and body to fight with a sword still wasn’t. They were infuriatingly right, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it.

This time, she manages to side-step him and glance a swipe at her off of her blade, before thrusting it forward and sinking the metal right into Nick’s torso.

Her eyes went wide as she realized what she’d done. She yanked her sword back and cringed, approaching him carefully.  
“Nick, are you...?” she asked nervously. His free hand was pressed into his side now, face screwed up in pain.

“He can still attack you, you know,” Andy advised mildly from where she was sitting. “He’s still standing and he’s still got his sword. Don’t assume someone will go down just because you land one blow.”

Nile’s eyes darted to Andy and she watched Nicky in nervous anticipation, waiting for a blow that didn’t come. Instead, he held up the hand that wasn’t holding his sword, blood-covered as it was, as a show of peace and gave her a painful smile.

“I’m not going to attack you for your compassion,” He said simply, not even sparing Andy a look, but to Nile, the words felt pointed and Andy snorted from her seat.

“But yes, she is right,” he added on then, relaxing his stance and stretching his torso as the wound healed. “With an enemy, you must be much more cautious. Still,” he said, smiling much more easily now, “that was good. You spotted an opening and you took it.” He looked... _proud_ , honestly, and she couldn’t help the way that look filled up her chest with warmth.

“We go again,” he said then, back to business as his expression settled and he fell back into his stance, she followed suit. Their next round did not go so well, and Nile quickly realized he had been going easy on her.

In the end, she ended up lying on the mat once again, breathing heavily while he stood in front of her, her blood still wet on his blade and his drying on her own. He always avoided killing blows though she was starting to notice that. He’d side-swiped her enough times but had never stabbed her, or cut anywhere vital. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to do the same, she didn’t think she even had the dexterity with a blade to avoid it altogether. But she wasn’t the one who wouldn’t get back up.

She propped herself up on her elbows then, studying him. “Am I not new anymore?” she asked him, squinting.

“What?” he was clearly not following her, which was fair, considering the question was sort of out-of-the-blue.

“Andy shot me because she said I’m too new to die, but you’re…” she struggled for the right words, yes he was going easy on her, but it wasn’t just that.

His expression hardened then and Andy sighed from where she was sitting to watch. “It’s not just you kid, don’t worry.” Andy spoke then, “There’s a reason why he didn’t have much hands-on training with Booker.”

Nicky quirked the corners of his mouth up then, it was a smile, but it didn’t look remotely happy, “Andy thinks I’m too soft,” he told her simply, voice level while his face held tension around his eyes. He held out a hand to her then, to help her up.

She took his hand, while Andy protested, “I never said that.”

Nicky slid his eyes towards her without a word, before focusing back on Nile.

“Go again?” He offered. And she looked between him and Andy uncertainly, before she dropped into her fighting stance.

“Yeah.”

* * *

For some reason, she decides it's a good idea to ask Joe, “did you kill Booker when you were training him?” Or maybe not _decides_ , so much as it’s on her mind and sometimes the first thing on her mind ends up being the first thing she does, usually to her detriment.

He looks at her wild-eyed for a moment, then he looks pissed off, very pissed off.

“What?” He hisses first, “You think _I_ drove him to sell us out?” he asks sharply and she presses her lips together, wishing she’d just kept her mouth firmly shut.

“Uh, no, no!” she starts, “I just— Nicky never kills me, but Andy said that’s why you and she trained Booker.” He sets his jaw then, and looks away from her, “that’s all,” she reiterated for good measure, hoping he understood she hadn’t meant to imply something.

“Booker is a different person from you,” He stated firmly then. She wondered if he’d ever felt the need to put distance between himself and Booker before now, the way he did with her. He twirled the knife between his fingers, staring firmly ahead before going still and glancing at her. He huffed then, “you remind me of Nicky sometimes,” and considering this was _Joe-and-Nicky_ , they were talking about, she took that as a high compliment. “Too much,” he added on grimly and her hopes fell.

She squinted at him, “you think I’m too soft?” She asked, challenging.

He arched an eyebrow at her then, looking just as challenging. “ _N_ _o_ ,” he intoned, clearly still annoyed. Nile really did not know how to quit when she was ahead, huh? He went on steamrolling her with the words, “I think you would die trying to stop a man you _shot_ from bleeding out, I think you would take a bullet for someone you only knew for a few days, I think you would let a man who betrayed all of us off with just an apology, I think you want to help people, and I don’t think you enjoy killing _anyone_.” He took a sharp breath, throwing the knife so it sunk perfectly into a branch that was just around head-height, and crossed his arms across his chest.

Nile couldn’t really breathe, she hadn’t known he thought any of that about her, hadn’t thought about all of it herself.

He spoke again though, even when she thought he was done. “Don’t let anyone, not Andy, not _anyone,_ tell you it’s a bad thing to be ‘soft’.”

She swallowed then, trying to fight back the tears trying to run free, she didn’t even know why she was so close to crying, she hadn’t properly cried in a long time, but it was hard to stop now.

She couldn’t look at him, but she heard him sigh, and then a hand was on her shoulder, drawing her in. She didn’t even realize she had dropped the knife until her arms were around him, as he hugged her close. And she sobbed. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been held while she cried, but it had certainly been her mother who had done it. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged someone properly, not since Dizzy and Jay, just putting an arm around one another. She held onto him, and she sobbed, and she couldn’t seem to stop.

“I know,” Joe murmured, arms secure around her. “I know this is not easy.”


	4. Hole in your guard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey im back! gonna finish this one off in a bit just one more chap ! uuuh, lmk what you think and also i really appreciated all the comments on the last chapter <33 even tho it took me forever to update T-T

“What was training Booker like?” She asked Andy because, despite everything, Andy was the easiest to talk to.

Andy raised an eyebrow at her, but she still answered, “It was training. What do you mean?”

“I mean… you said Nicky didn’t train Booker because he... “ she paused, before deciding on her words, “he doesn’t go for a killing blow, but that’s how training any regular person works, so what was training Booker like?”

Andy looked at her for a moment, her expression reminded Nile more of Nicky at that moment, the impassive assessment. “We’re not regular people,” was all Andy said at first, “at least,” she added, smirking slightly, “you’re not.” She sobered again just as quickly, explaining further “I went hard on him, just the same as I went hard on Joe and Nicky because the world will not ever go easy on you. I want you to be prepared for that.” She said then took a slow breath.

“Booker was— _is_ ,” she corrected, “one of my best friends, I didn’t hurt him unnecessarily. It was training, like I said.”

Nile could hear the sorrow staining her tone, but she didn’t comment on it, instead, asking her, “and what about Joe and Booker?”

Andy started to smile again at that, “with them, it was always like a competition,” she snorted slightly, “him and Nicky might’ve made stupid bets all the time, but Joe and Booker, they made a sport of that shit. I know you never got to see it, but they were like _brothers_.”

“That’s why it hurt him so bad,” Nile observed.

“It hurt all of us,” Andy corrected, voice measured.

“I just meant—” Nile started, but Andy shook her head.

“Nicky might not show it, but he’s always had a bleeding heart.”

“Oh,” Nile responded, turning this revelation over in her head.

“He’s glad to be training you though,” Andy spoke, looking towards her with a small smile, “even if it’s just because I’m apparently too fragile.” Nile didn’t miss that she didn’t mention Joe.

“He’s a good teacher,” Nile agreed.

“He always did have a nurturing spirit,” Andy snorted, then glanced at Nile, “Don’t tell him I said that, I’ve seen him blow a man’s brains out from 50 meters out and cleave people down with a broadsword, and I trust him with my life, but if he gets wind that I think he might be _‘soft’_ he’ll sulk and if _he_ sulks, Joe gets sad, and it’s all downhill from there,” Andy said, levity clear in her voice, but Nile was really, _really_ having to learn to read between the lines with these people so she asked what wasn’t said.

“Do you?”

“What?”

“Do you think he’s too soft?” Nile clarified.

Andy was quiet for a long moment. “Yes,” she said then, voice low, “but not for the reason you or he thinks.” She sighed, “we’re warriors, all of us. Nicky would never hesitate to strike the killing blow when he needed to. But, I just wish, sometimes, we could just live peacefully. That he wouldn’t have to. But… Nicky is here because he believes in something. I’m not exactly sure what, anymore, but he fights for that reason. I just… I know what he’s capable of, and I know how much he cares. And I _want_ him to be too soft,” she admitted, her low voice barely above a whisper, “I wish you could choose.”

Nile swallowed, watching Andy in profile. Andy always got to the point of things, Nile knew that was why she liked talking to her so much.

“Me too,” Nile murmured, then Andy was shifting to put an arm around her, and Nile took a breath to go on. “But… somehow I’m still glad I’m here with all of you.”

“For what it’s worth, kid, I’m glad you’re here too.”

* * *

“What was your first fight?” She asked, after a few frantic swallows of water on their break from sparring.

“Huh?” Nicky turned to her, looking openly confused.

“It’s something Joe asked me.” she answered, “not the first time you killed, but the first time you struggled,” she said plainly.

He paused, contemplating this, before glancing back at her. “Is an interesting thing to ask,” he mused, brows still furrowed and she smiled and shrugged.

“Joe,” she said again as an explanation.

“Yes, I know Joe,” Nicky half-laughed the words, smiling now too. He hummed, then started to regale, “I was a young man, probably... teenager?” he spoke, recalling it in pieces, “these boys, were tossing stones at birds, and I fought them off. I mean— I warned them, but they did not go, so,” he gestured, to indicate he sprung into action.

“And did you win?”

Nicky paused to consider that question. “I don’t know if I won, but they ended up running off, I… I remember one of the birds was hurt. I took it home to care for, but it still died.”

Nile marveled at how long ago this must have been. Of course, things were never so simple as winning and losing.


	5. Strengthen your stance

“Can I ask you something personal?” Nile spoke, sitting next to Joe as he sketched outside, they weren’t training for once. Nile had a thought that had been gnawing at her and she’d felt confident enough to seek him out to ask.

“Everything is personal,” he answered frankly, “ask.”

“You and Nicky…” she started, mulling over how she wanted to phrase this. He stopped drawing to look at her then, brows raised.

“Me and Nicky?” he prompted. His accent seemed to change with the words he was saying, sounding like he could be American just then. She wondered how many places he’d been, and for how long, how many accents he picked up, all of it seemed to reflect in his voice. She wondered how Nicky seemed to refuse to adapt his own. And how Andy kept the one flawlessly.

“You never really… kiss or hold hands or anything when you’re with me and Andy, except for… you hold him at night, is that…?” She trailed off. Was it a choice? Or was it fear?

“We _are_ affectionate in that way if that’s what you’re asking,” he answered simply, still watching her curiously.

“No, I mean, do you want to be?”

He blinked in surprise then, “it depends on the company and how we are feeling, I suppose.”

“Around Andy?” Nile asked.

Joe shrugged, leaning back in his chair, sketchbook still balanced on his leg. “Andy never cared.”

“Not me?” Nile asked, curiously.

“Depends. Do you care?” He asked, raising his brows again, “why did you ask?”

She hesitated, “It just seems like something couples do, but you weren’t, seemed like something was missing, like you guys had learned not to,” She looks away from him, boring her knuckles into her thigh anxiously, “I can understand that,” she sighed.

He let out a slow breath, then, “Booker, he could not stand it at first.” She straightened up at that, looking up at him in bald shock. That was the first time he brought up Booker without prompting.

“We still— when we sleep, we hold each other. We can’t sleep, unless I’m holding him, or at least, it’s a disturbed sleep. We are just better together,” smiling a little as he said it, and Nile nodded, paying close attention as he spoke. 

“But,” he said, smile falling away, “Booker thought it was wrong, and Nicky—” he sighed, shaking his head, “Nicky cannot stand when people show him disdain for it, he would rather we keep it only for ourselves than anyone to see us and sneer. Or do much worse,” Joe added, with a dark chuckle. “ _I_ —” he pressed his hand to his chest, speaking emphatically now, all the grim amusement was gone from him, “I could not care for all the world to see us with spite in their eyes,” he looks at her now, dark eyes shining and she’s hopeless to do anything but hold his gaze, "so long as they knew my love for that man.”

He looks away again, and everything is silent for a moment, save for the sound of cicadas in the distance.

“He stopped caring at a certain point,” Joe spoke again and it took a floundering moment for Nile to realize he was talking about Booker. “But Nicky and I had already learned to keep it for ourselves. When we were strapped to the table, it’s almost funny, he said to me: ‘You and Nicky always had each other. We were alone.’” He glanced at her again. “Do you think he was jealous?”

He was half-smiling, she couldn't tell if he was trying to lighten the mood, or actually asking her, but either way, she had no answer.

“Andy said you were like brothers,” She choked the words out, not able to understand, “how did you get so close to someone who didn’t accept something so important about you?”

“In time, and in this world, you will always find people whose beliefs are so strongly different than yours. Sometimes you cannot compromise, those are the ones I kill,” he said smiling sharply for a moment before his expression flattened once more, “but sometimes, they will learn with time. It took him some years, but he learned things were bigger than his beliefs. He will learn he was wrong, as always,” mouth turning into an angry line.

“H-how long is two-hundred years to you?” she asked, stuttering over the words, trying to comprehend it.

“It’s two hundred years,” he said shaking his head minutely, brows furrowed, “it’s a long time, but… it’s not long at all. It’s...a lot of history, and it’s also, _nothing_ compared to 900 years.” He sighed, “Everything you remember about it, seems, not so long ago, but everything you forget, is lost to so much time.”

“I… I can’t even imagine it,” she admitted, she felt so small.

“You never can,” he agreed, “we’re still human.”

* * *

That night, when they sat down to eat, Joe sat next to Nicky, and when he took his hand on top of the table, Nile could feel Nicky’s eyes on her, but she only smiled to herself as she ate.

When Nicky sat down beside her on the couch, where she had curled up to listen to music in her earbuds, Nile realized how little she interacted with him outside of her training.

Sometimes they sat in the living area together, him at the table and her on the couch, he read while she listened to music. But mostly, he kept to himself, the same as her. Sometimes she would seek out Andy, and she had started to do the same with Joe as she got used to him, but Nicky, they only met to train on the mats they spread in the garage of this safehouse, they walked back together to the kitchen to get water and then split to get showers Outside of that, and all of them eating together, she and Nicky didn’t really talk. Only just now had it occurred to her that may have been on purpose on his part.

She pulled out her earbuds, looking at the man beside her. He had his hands folded in his lap like he was planning to sit there patiently forever.

“Did you need something?” she asked hesitantly, watching him expectantly.

He looked at her then, a serene look on his face, seeming to consider the question, “Not particularly.” Then, “Joe told me what you asked.”

“Oh. Yeah?” She looked at him, nervously.

“Yes,” he agreed, “I… am glad, that you feel the way you do.”

She watched him for a moment, he wasn’t quite meeting her eye.

“Was Booker… a bad person?” she wondered.

He did meet her eye then, lifting his brows slightly. “Booker is flawed, Booker is human.”

“What was he to you?” She wondered then, still so unsure, of her own place, and the place she might be crossing into.

“Booker was my friend,” is all Nicky says, smiling at her sadly. “What did you think of him?” He asks her instead.

“I— I’m not sure,” she admitted, “those first days, I spent more time with him and talked with him more than I had either of you, I don’t think I trusted him totally, but I still thought I knew more about him than Andy. Then I realized he had done something when Andy’s gun was empty, but I… I never read him as someone who would want to hurt someone else. I thought he was someone who cared, who wanted— I’m not sure. He seemed like someone who was as done with this as I was and I guess I thought I understood him. I never thought he would betray all of you, I never understood the real threat that was until… Until just recently, actually, when I was talking to Joe, about how _long_ it all is.”

Nicky nodded gently. “He’s all of those things, he’s flawed, and he’s someone who cares, and he’s someone who doesn’t think he can go on.”

“Do you think we should have left him alone?” She asked suddenly with the wrongness of it all never once having left her. Why was exiling him their only option? It would never help the problem anyway.

“No,” Nicky answered her plain as day then.

“You want him to come back?” She asked countering herself, not even sure what she thought was the right thing anymore. “Even after all that, what he did to you two, what he said?”

“I miss him so much,” Nicky said and she watched the line of his throat move as he swallowed heavily, “and I am so furious with him,” he said then, voice rough with the feeling. “And I am so sad that I could not help him.”

“It seemed like he thought he could help himself,” she murmurs.

“He thought it would always hurt that much.” Nick corrects her then. “I don’t know what I could have done, but it always seems like there’s something, looking back,” he said softly, she wondered exactly how many regrets you can have over 900 years. “He was alone with us for a while, Andy went on her own, and Booker, he never said anything but he pulled away from us. He loved his family so much, and he’s been without them so long, he thought he could never feel that again. He was afraid, and fear, it does strange things to people,” he spoke, sorrow staining his tone. “Narrows your vision, until there’s only one solution, only one way out, until you’re the only one around.”

He sighed then, “Andy was the same, she was afraid none of it would get any better. That no matter what we did the world would all be worse. It’s hard to stop those fears when you don't have answers yourself. None of it helped.”

“Why did you agree to let him go, then?”

“Joe needs time away from him, I do not think it will last one hundred years. Nor does Andy. But it was what Joe needed then. He can’t be around him, it’s too fresh, hurts too much.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, curling her hands together and bowing her head, a familiar motion, even if she no longer prayed much at all.

“Joe likes you quite a lot,” Nicky offered then, bridging the silence between them.

She smirked, at that, “yeah, he told me,” she said, side-eyeing him, “when he said I reminded him of you.”

Nicky laughed at that, “I will tell him you said that.” She smiles, not bothering to mention how she had sobbed into Joe’s chest after that little speech of his.

Nicky let out a breath then, sobering, “he was afraid of that, of liking you too much,” he said and she nodded in understanding, smile falling as she did. “But,” he said, “you made him less afraid.”

“He said you were the one who didn’t feel comfortable with it,” Nile spoke curiously.

“I was,” Nicky answered, staring her down seriously, “I do not want to deal with other’s prejudices if I do not have to, this is a choice I have. I understand you and Joe mostly do not. But Joe also understands this feeling and he…” he shut his eyes then, shaking his head as he tried to find the words, “even if he does not feel the same about it, he respects my wishes.”

“But why did I make him less afraid?” She asked, still not following.

“Because you understand too. And because he— and I— know to trust you somewhere we did not with Booker.”

“Joe said he came around,” Nile pointed out, concerned.

“He did,” Nicky agreed, “but, when someone has something ingrained into them, it takes more than just learning better, it takes being better, too. Nile, I was a Crusader, I marched to the Holy lands to slaughter people in their homes, because I was taught they were wrong just for existing there. Joe and I, we killed one another, many times before we came anywhere close to communication, And these days, Joe says it like a joke.” he gestured as he spoke, brow furrowed deeply, and she’d never see him look quite so— _emotional_. “Joe, he finds the humor in many things, it’s just his way, but I— I have never found that part amusing. Joe is the love of my life, and I was taught to hate him. I did not just learn not to hate him, I learned how to do right by him. In every way that I could.”

“So…” she said, “Booker needs to _do_ better before you’ll trust him?”

“Yes,” he said, looking at her once more, and for once, that gaze didn’t feel sharp, and instead, it felt like a balm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be clear i love booker as a character, and I do headcanon he's bi, he has a lot of internalized stuff he had to work on and also he was never good enough at confrontation to apologize/talk to nicky and joe, so thats where this idea of them learning to be distant for that reason came from.
> 
> I also think it works very well for him to have had issues before just what we see in the movie, thats all, I hope you enjoyed, most of all I wanted to dig into Nile's growing relationship with her new immortal family, and the changes that came with it
> 
> thanks so much again for all the sweet comments <3

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are very appreciated <33


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